Against the Psychoanalytic Unconscious: Deleuze, Guattari, and Desire As a Heuristic for Self-Regulating Biopolitics," Occam's Razor: Vol
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Occam's Razor Volume 8 (2018) Article 2 2018 Against the Psychoanalytic Unconscious: Deleuze, Guattari, and Desire as a Heuristic for Self- Regulating Biopolitics Chris Coles Western Washington University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/orwwu Part of the Other Political Science Commons, and the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Coles, Chris (2018) "Against the Psychoanalytic Unconscious: Deleuze, Guattari, and Desire as a Heuristic for Self-Regulating Biopolitics," Occam's Razor: Vol. 8 , Article 2. Available at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/orwwu/vol8/iss1/2 This Research Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Western Student Publications at Western CEDAR. It has been accepted for inclusion in Occam's Razor by an authorized editor of Western CEDAR. 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Thus, biopolitics 1 ^''Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison^' provides the regulatory framework for which the which his preceding lectures would later term 'bio- execution of power (that Foucault describes in politics\ Both "Discipline and Punish” and "The Birth "Discipline and Punish”) not only arises, but also of Biopolitics” represent some of the most important, the reason for which it exists in the first place. impactful, and informative theories on the way in Biopolitics works not only as a description of the which surveillance functions; consequently, how its power works to materially produce the conditions but also the reason for which those apparatuses for oppression. are used. In "Discipline and Punish^” Foucault utilizes gene While Foucault’s analysis is thorough in the alogical analysis to trace the historical strands that material examination of the existence and func come together in forming of disciplinary society; tion of biopolitics, it lacks a desire-focused ex what Foucault articulates typifies the power for planation for the reason in which biopolitics is mation and deployment of the contemporary sov- so effective at not only sustaining power, but also ereignh Foucault expands on this theory through in the regulation of populations'^. This lack of de the development of 'biopolitics\ He defines this as sire-centered analysis has led some to interpret the sovereign’s use of power through politics. This and mobilize Foucauldian biopolitics in such a is done in order to manipulate and control the lives 4 I Published by Western CEDAR, 2018 1 Occam's Razor, Vol. 8 [2018], Art. 2 HEURISTIC I involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by way that reinforces the Lacanian psy experimental and especially trial-and- choanalytic tradition; the process has error methods forwarded an understanding of biopol itics that actually reinforces biopolitical BIOPOWER: control. As both a resistance to this the development of techniques for having fundamentally violent trend and appli power over other bodies cation of Foucault’s analysis to the vio lence of the neoliberal world, I propose that the work of Gilles Deleuze and ferently. Forwarding and reframing (to Felix Guattari (specifically their elabo his credit) Freud, Lacan centers desire ration on desire and ^desiring-machines,^) around an individual’s unconscious and as the best heuristic for understanding specifically the unconscious contain the way in which biopower functions. ment of unknowable 'signifiers^. In Deleuze and Guattari’s first writ deed, to Lacan, the unconscious governs ten-assemblage ""Anti-Oedipus: Cap the expression of a subjects desire and italism and Schizophrenia Volume i” actions; dually, the unconscious is un addresses the way in which Lacanian able to be fully understood^. psychoanalysis - and psychoanalysis To clarify, what Lacan articulates writ large - engenders the conditions is that there are latent, naturalistic for the capitalist control and manipula 'signifiers\ When interfaced with so tion of bodies and subjectivities^. Thus, cial realities (which correspond to said before diving into Deleuze and Guat ^signifiers), it produces a specific kind tari’s (DnG) concept of desire and how of desiring-response. Lacan then uses it implicates biopolitics, it’s critical to Freud’s Oedipus Complex to re-con- understand the Lacanian psychoanaly ceptualize the want to kill the father as sis that provided the structure for which the fundamental '‘castration! or '‘loss that they were writing against. While both is at the heart of every subject’s psycho Lacan and DnG’s critical projects center logical development^. This loss provides the importance of desire, they go about the framework for which unconscious constructing desire - and its interaction signifiers interface with the world. Due with subjects and society - radically dif- to the strictly partial knowability of the unconscious, there will always be a Foucault defines [biopolitics] as the sovereign’s use of power through politics. This is done in order to manipulate and control the lives of the sovereign’s subjects. https://cedar.wwu.edu/orwwu/vol8/iss1/2 2 Coles: Against the Psychoanalytic Unconscious: Deleuze, Guattari, and De 'lack' in what is expressed and what is understood. This 'lack' comes to express the fundamental lynch pin of Lacanian desire: due to the inability of subjects throughout the social body” through its to fully understand the other, desire ability to get subjects to self-regulate can only be represented and understood themselves^. The question of self-regu through the individuals unconscious. lation opens the door for Lacanian psy Despite the fact that Foucault would choanalysis to describe the conditions likely object to his work being explained for which that self-regulation occurs; through a frame of Lacanian psycho generally, this is through some appeal analysis, he lacks an articulation of how to the voyeuristic unconscious. Since biopolitics intersects with a conception self-regulation centers on Foucault’s of desire and subjectivity. Due to this, discussion of power, this interpretation and the near omnipresence of Lacan in is able to circuit the entirety of biopol the western academy, Foucault’s con itics through Lacanian psychoanalysis. ception of biopolitics leaves itself very Deleuze and Guattari focus on La open to the possibility of being ex canian psychoanalysis and its explana plained through Lacan. A conception tion of power as the oppositional form of biopolitics understood through La which they develop their concept of de canian psychoanalysis would ground the sire. Antithetical to Lacan’s individualist functioning of biopower in its appeal to concept of desire, Deleuze and Guattari individual unconscious signifiers; also, articulate that desire is inherently a col communicating that sovereign control lective and horizontal function; hence, stems from its ability to generate the the connection of one subject to another possibility for individuals to shift their creates a 'desiring-machine. Addition psychological anxiety (or lack thereof) ally, the function produces desire both onto the other. from that connection and the connec The possibility for the aforemen tions broader position in the structures tioned Lacanian interpretation of bio of society^®. politics seems to be most applicable in To Deleuze and Guattari, desire is Foucault’s usage of Bentham’s 'Panopti necessarily a collective production, in con as a heuristic for understanding one which the unconscious is a theater that structuralized instance of biopolitics. produces and internalizes the desire One of Foucault’s arguments as to why that is produced by the relationships the panoptic society is so powerful in its in which subjects engage - also, the regulation of populations is due to the structures of power that those subjects fact that the panoptic is able to “spread encounter^^’^^. Desire implicates subjec tivity; however, subjects are not static. Published by Western CEDAR, 2018 3 Occam's Razor, Vol. 8 [2018], Art. 2 contained, individuals. Instead, subjects are con stantly open and changing to the desire that is constantly produced in civil society; Deleuze and Guattari term this 'becoming^^. Therefore, desire HEGEMONY is not a lack that can never be understood (termi- Leadership or dominance, especially by one nalizing in only the individual); instead, desire is country or social group over others a flow that is constantly moving, connecting, and growing in intensity in such a way that produc es subjects as 'becoming instead of individuah"^. 'Becoming consequently produces subject-subject relationships and structural arrangements that Deleuzoguattarian desire would conceptualize the are horizontal. These arrangements are based on self-regulation endemic to biopolitics as not a ques affective connections and open to the flowing of tion of the voyeuristic unconscious; instead, it is the desire in a necessarily anti-hierarchal way; these sovereign’s